ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Cornell Extensions of Monroe and Tompkins County proudly invites farmers, food entrepreneurs, horse-farm owners, and other agribusiness operators to attend the Agritourism workshop.

This workshop is the first of the series designed to help farmers build necessary skills and partnerships, scale their business and create sales by expanding from purely agricultural operations to creating an experience-based ‘destination’ farm for public.

Time: Thursday, March 30th, 2017; 8:30 am – 3:00 pm
Location: Wegman Lodge, 2222 St. Paul St., Seneca Park, Rochester, NY, 14621

This session, the first of the series, will cover the key aspects of running an agritourism business, including event selection and planning, attracting visitors through strategic marketing and use of social media, the new industry’s dimension and insurance coverage.

The participants will hear the industry experts: Greg LaDuca and Cailin Lawrence of Visit Rochester discussing tactics on connecting farmers and visitors through partnership and strategic marketing. Bill Wickham of Wickham Farms, Laura Faulk of Experience The Finger Lakes, Joe Hurtley of Kettle Ridge Farm and Amy Machamer of Hurd Orchards  will share tips on scaling up and building a successful business from U-pick to full entertainment farm. Monika Roth of CCE Tompkins County will talk about new dimensions of Agritourism and Mike Southcott of National Insurance will cover the risk management issues.

The participants will also receive a workbook to help them start developing their own plan.

Registration fee includes lunch, raffle for a book signing session and a raffle. The participants are encouraged to bring their business cards; only those will be entered into the raffle basket!

For more details and to register go here: http://monroe.cce.cornell.edu/events/2017/03/30/getting-started-in-agritourism

—Cornell Extensions of Monroe and Tompkins County

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